Communication. I love it. Especially effective, two-way, online communication involving elected officials and their staff on one hand, and real people. Sometimes it needs some effort but it works.

I spend a bit of time talking about it and encouraging it, to the point that I measure the number of MPs using Twitter (How many? you ask - 71 in the last week out of 121 MPs.) Twitter is my medium of choice because it is open, direct, and you can hear the authentic voice of the person. In 140 characters there is little room for dissembling or prevaricating either. Yet the ability to add links allows for long form debate to happen too.

It was great yesterday morning to see two real-life examples, one here in Wellington and one from slightly further afield.

Yet it was a rather large surprise when Alec Ross weighed in just after 9.30am to ask if he could help fix a problem caused by his government. As in the United States of America. Now I’d heard of him. Alec is Hillary Clinton’s Senior Advisor for Innovation. Every US Ambassador is trained in social media by Alec before taking up a posting. Alec had been in New Zealand last week as part of Project (R)evolution conference, a collaboration between AUT University, SocialMedia NZ and the US Embassy. I knew he’d played a key role in Barack Obama’s social media and online campaign on the Way to the White House. He was instrumental in generating the tidal wave of microdonations for the 2008 campaign.

@alecjross 9.33am @philiplyth Your tweets got my attention. What did we do wrong vis a vis transcription? Tell me so we can fix.

So why did he get in touch? (I have no idea how he found me.) And how did he do it from Washington DC within 75 minutes of my first tweet on the subject?

Russell had not unreasonably assumed that the State Department could be relied upon to publish an authentic transcript, but not so. With help from New Zealand journalists who supplied a digital soundfile from their dictaphones, John Key’s actual statement was clearer. (There must be someone in Washington DC right now who is feeling very small and wishing they could crawl into a mousehole to hide from the world.) Take a look at the State Department’s original paragraph, and my correction (emphasis added.)

Secretary Clinton and I discussed the broad range of issues in the Asia Pacific region as we look towards the APEC summit in Russia in around 10 days time. New Zealand warmly supports the United States rebalancing towards the Asia Pacific, and we welcome the opportunity to cooperate with the U.S.in the next conflicts. We discussed our ongoing (inaudible) along side a number of other countries (inaudible) partnership agreement. Secretary Clinton and I share the goal of securing a high quality, (inaudible) free trade agreement, would be a significant (inaudible) countries involved, indeed to the region as a whole.

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Secretary Clinton and I discussed a broad range of issues in the Asia Pacific region as we look towards the APEC summit in Russia in around 10 days time. New Zealand warmly supports the United States rebalancing towards the Asia Pacific, and we welcome the opportunity to cooperate further.In that context,we discussed our ongoing efforts to negotiate along side a number of other countries a trans-Pacific partnership agreement. Secretary Clinton and I share the goal of securing a high quality,21st-century free trade agreement, would be of significant benefit to the countries involved, indeed to the region as a whole.

Some of us, myself included, began discussing matters both in the comments section of Hard News and on Twitter. These included journalists, mostly clarifying, with one taking umbrage.

Because I’m the sort of guy who believes that people deserve to know they are being talked about, I rang the good folk at the US Embassy in Wellington, and talked to Stephen Johns. He assured me someone would be on to the apparent transcription error. (And the big error has been fixed.) So when Alec Ross got in touch I was able to tell him the Embassy was onto it. He sent a followup tweet as well, making a point that is good for all of us to be reminded of occasionally.

9.53am @philiplyth - good, thanks. Tweet me if all not rectified. And re filters, as I tell our ambassadors: you have only 1 mouth, but 2 ears.

How the heck did Alec Ross come to tweet me? I have no idea. At 8.32am I had noted the irony of the State Department making a monumental blunder when in a NZ Herald profile, Alec had said that the choice of a specific word has repercussions.

I noted above that Twitter is open. I did mention Alec in one of my tweets, but not by his Twitter handle, @AlecJRoss. I’ve wracked my brains to see what, out of all the millions of tweets flying around the world, could have brought me to his attention or the attention of an awesome filter. I checked his tweets and mentions of him. I still have no idea. Alec modestly demurs possessing superpowers, saying:

9.58am @philiplyth Not omnipotent. Attentive.

That is still impressive. And the timing was too - his first tweet to me was at 5.33pm daylight saving time in Washington DC.

Now, I promised you a Wellington example. Michael “Koz” Koziarski is a software developer and partner at software studio Southgate Labs. He tweeted his frustration at trying to ring Inland Revenue:

@nzkoz 10:07am How long will the IRD keep pretending that everyone has a land-line? Do they also require filing of tax returns on parchment with wax seal?

So the point of this column? That it is possible to engage government(s) by online communication. After all, they are all made of people who put their trousers on one leg at a time. There is some value in knowing how to go about it, but that is another story.

And Alec Ross? Today I learned he is a family guy, living in Baltimore with three children. He had tweeted that one of a daughter asked him to bring back a hobbit from New Zealand. I hope she got a nice present when he returned home.

28 responses to this post

I’m fascinated by this too Philip, although for slightly different reasons.

I first became aware of the “next conflicts” phrase on Monday afternoon, when it was tweeted by Selwyn Manning, with a link to a copy of the official transcript on the 36th Parallel website he runs with Paul Buchanan. I retweeted it, and was a little surprised by the lack of response to what seemed to me to be an extraordinary statement.

I decided I’d write a short post about it for Tuesday morning, when I needed to be away by about 8am to get to the airport for a meeting in Wellington (the flight wasn’t til 9.30 but I was determined not to be rushing). I wrote part of it, finished it early Tuesday morning and announced it with a tweet:

“New post: The most disturbing thing John Key said at the Pacific Islands Forum. And hardly anyone noticed: pubadr.es/8149”

The tweet got a much stronger response than my RT of Selwyn’s message had the previous day. That included replies from two journalists who had directly covered Key’s remarks on Sunday: Radio New Zealand’s Megan Whelan and NZ Newswires’ Laura McQuillan. They were both sure that Key hadn’t said what he was reported in the transcript as saying.

I immediately annotated the blog post, and both Megan and Laura offered to send me the clip in question from their own recordings. My own departure time ticked past, but I didn’t feel I could leave the house with this unresolved. Laura tried to send me the clip from her phone, but it didn’t work. Eventually, Megan emailed hers through, I posted it in the comments, wrote a new intro for the blog post and fired out another tweet saying it as loudly as possible: Key clearly, very clearly, had not spoken the words in the transcript.

Should I have dismissed the possibility that a comment like this would go unreported by New Zealand journalists? Perhaps. But this was a State Department transcript. By the time I read it, it had been widely circulated and by Tuesday morning it had been in place for a day. No one appeared to have directly contested it.

It was understandable that journalists with their own sources wouldn’t have relied on the State transcript – but did this mean no one in the press bothers to look at official transcripts? And more to the point, that no one at all in government does? Even after the false quote was tweeted and debated on Monday? I have more than 9000 Twitter followers, and Selwyn and Martyn Bradbury, who also commented, have a few too.

No one, it seemed, noticed until I actually established that the quote was false. Had I had time, I’d have re-written the post entirely, around what was now clearly the real angle – the transcription practices of the State Department and the potentially damaging error they had produced. (I think everyone agrees that the PM’s diction isn’t at fault in this instance.)

The story ended up getting quite a bit of coverage. The TV3 online guys were first, with a story that mentioned me, followed by the Herald, with one that didn’t (and seemed to suggest the problem had been noted independently) and one on Stuff that misspelled my name. One News and 3 News both covered it that evening.

It wasn’t so much the non-mention of my name that slightly irked me, as the absence of the context in which this gaffe became clear. It appears that no one noticed there was a problem until I wrote something. It’s hard not to wonder how many other times this has happened. It casts some doubt on the quality of State’s information outreach and the attentiveness of people in our own government.

Anyway, I left the house half an hour late, encountered school traffic, roadworks and a showstopping smash on the motorway ahead of me and despite my most athletic efforts at the airport, missed the flight closure by about a minute. I was fucked off. I jumped back on Twitter and semi-jokingly expressed the view that State had made me miss my plane, which Alec Ross didn’t seem to take in good part. In retrospect, I guess he was never going to see the funny side.

Oh, and that’s the original clip at the top of this comment, if anyone missed it.

That it is possible to engage government(s) by online communication. After all, they are all made of people who put their trousers on one leg at a time.

Oh they are fallible all right. Still IRD, if you only have a mobile makes you call a landline no. and you still have to put up with mind numbing muzak which is costing you money to tell them about their glaring basic maths error. Then the wheels, well you can almost hear them clanking, are set in motion. Hope it hasnt happened to anyone else.As for the US coming election hopefully they might get past the shallow politic and see people

Almost on the topic of Miss-speaking...Not wishing to derail a thread Russell but I wonder if you may wish to enlighten your good friend BernardChickey on a more appropriate description of homosexuality. "lifestyle choice" really?. My nudges and winks are falling on deaf ears over at Interest.co.nz. I was thinking that (in this month of prostate awareness) you may wish to give him a brotherly poke to awaken him from his slumber.No apology needed - just a wording change, will stop my Inner Bitchness from being unleashed.Amanda XX

Indeed. I didn't blog it but I asked the PM's office yesterday. The first they knew of the transcript error was when a Kiwi journalist from the Gallery rang them. None of Murray McCully's people had informed them.

Not wishing to derail a thread Russell but I wonder if you may wish to enlighten your good friend BernardChickey on a more appropriate description of homosexuality. “lifestyle choice” really?. My nudges and winks are falling on deaf ears over at Interest.co.nz.

State also have advanced real-time semantic monitoring beyond what the rest of us have access too.

Maybe. I don't think it's out of the question that there's just people in the State Department who are genuine followers of Russell as an opinion leader in this country. The "real-time semantic monitor" could be someone who follows social media, has NZ as one of their charges, and read the tweets and blog and went "Oh fuck, better tell Alec". So there's one person getting a slap for poor transcription and another getting a pat for keeping their ear to the ground.

Tuesdays Top 10. Comment on Colbert segment.It's only a little thing but I'm a sensitive soul you see...but he could be a 'grower, not a shower' and needs correctional squeeze.I think he will see the error of his ways when your push comes to shove...Amanda XX

Maybe. I don't think it's out of the question that there's just people in the State Department who are genuine followers of Russell as an opinion leader in this country.

Possibly. former journalist Sean Gillespie handles media duties for the US Embassy in Wellington and looked after Ross while he was here, but he doesn't follow me. I think it was Philip's heads-up to the Embassy that got things rolling, and that may have been how Ross became aware of the issue.

Irony. Yes. I concur wholeheartedly. And yet... 'twere it Micheal Laws who would not respond to a request for clarification, me thinks you would have a different view? perhaps?I was genuine in my questioning of his wording and I thought a reply would be forthcoming - even if it were to suggest that the joke would lose it's magic upon explanation. But no response? Mmm. Maybe Emma or Craig would wish to take up my cudgel.Guess I will have to attend to my reddened areas and apply the salve more generously. Thank you for your prompt and considered replies.Amanda XX

After all, they are all made of people who put their trousers on one leg at a time.

Hmmmm... doesn't that leave you with only a 50/50 chance of getting the fly facing the right way?I also know people who eschew standing, and pull both legs on from a sitting start, sometimes boots 'n' all!What we need is a some kind of strident Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press of good standing to report all this for us... oh hang on...

I also know people who eschew standing, and pull both legs on from a sitting start, sometimes boots ‘n’ all!

I had a boyfriend who liked to stand and jump into his jeans with both feet at once. His success rate was about 50%, pretty good really.

Russell, I think you showed up a lot of slackness here, both in government and the rest of the media. I particularly can't understand why Key himself doesn't seem to have been bothered. This matter could have been sorted by his office immediately, I would have thought.

And yeah, win for social media. Or how social media let the people with brains and initiative and the people with influence talk to each other.

I think you showed up a lot of slackness here, both in government and the rest of the media.

Yes. The transcript *was* a story. If the journalists had heard the Prime Minister's actual words, and could confirm that he had not said "conflicts", then the correct response was to report that.

To say (in effect) that the State Dept had made a serious error, and therefore it wasn't a story, would be a failure of journalism. I don't subscribe to the conspiracy theories ("MSM = Key's PR"!1!!) but I would like to know why the gallery reporters didn't immediately see this as news. Because it clearly was.

we welcome the opportunity to cooperate with the U.S. in the next conflicts.

Off the rocking horse that sounds about as honest a (mis)quote as you're going to get from a politician these days - welcomed as warmly as all the others, if history be permitted to get a breath in edgeways.

These wars are superb fodder for state funded TV shows and blogs where reasons for said cooperation can be retrospectively amended, where bold comparative statements intimating lost eras when the question of Afghanistan was any less urgent, can be spuriously and gainfully employed.

Re invoking a person's name, there are a lot of people called Alec Ross on twitter. I am still surprised he found my mention of his name (not his Twitter handle.)

Social media monitors like Radian6 would certainly be tuned to something like that - they can do a lot with paid access to the Twitter firehose (as well as these very blog comments). It's almost certain that US State et al use one of those tools...